Weekly Wrap: Getting heard in scary times

We at the Freedom From Religion Foundation are heartened that our voice is getting heard even in these scary times (and, no, we aren’t just talking about Halloween).

The judicial system in Arkansas yet again listened to us recently.

“A federal court has issued a temporary restraining order preventing Lakeside School District No. 9 in Arkansas from displaying the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms,” says a TV station in the Razorback State. “The plaintiffs, represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the ACLU of Arkansas, ACLU, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, sought to include Lakeside School District and new plaintiffs in the litigation.”

The leading national publication covering educational issues noticed a legal action of ours in Texas.

“A federal appeals court has added the Texas law mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms to the full court review already announced for a similar law in Louisiana,” states a story in Education Week. “A federal district judge blocked the Texas law in August, though he limited the injunction to a group of 11 school districts where plaintiffs backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Freedom From Religion Foundation live.” FFRF and our coalition are so far successfully keeping biblical edicts out of classrooms in all of the school districts we’ve sued in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas!

California media featured our response when a school board there absurdly chose to challenge our 2018 court victory against religious ritual and prayer.

“Four days after a federal judge denied the Chino Valley Unified School District’s second attempt to bring prayer back to board meetings, the school district decided it would file an appeal,” an article in the local paper states. “‘The members of the Board of Education are wrong on the law and are continuing to needlessly expend resources in their attempt to impose religion on district families,’ Patrick Elliott, legal director for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said on Wednesday. ‘We are confident we will be successful on the appeal.’”

Phoenix paper seeks our viewpoint

When the Phoenix paper highlighted the recent flaunting of religiosity among governmental bodies in Arizona, it sought our perspective. “Annie [Laurie] Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said, ‘Public officials have ample opportunity to stop at church on the way to or from a public meeting or to pray privately,’” stated a piece in the Arizona Republic.

Our op-ed in a California publication

We’re getting the word out to the public on important issues.

“Prop 50 is a line in the sand,” says a piece in a Bay Area publication co-authored by FFRF Action Fund President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “It stands up to bullies who want to rig elections, silence secular Americans, and enshrine Christian nationalism into law. That’s why the Freedom From Religion Foundation Action Fund and Equality California support Prop 50 and are encouraging their advocates to vote yes on Prop 50. Prop 50 allows California voters to defend their own representation, create a fair national playing field, secure a Congress that protects constitutional principles, block sectarian overreach, and hold Trump and his allies accountable.”

Our objection to a religious public school gets noticed

Our regular strivings are also attracting attention.

“A few months ago, Riverstone Academy quietly opened up just outside Pueblo, Colorado. The school describes itself as a tuition-free public school open to students in grades K-5,” says a piece on the “Friendly Atheist” blog site. “There are currently 30 students enrolled. But the description went well beyond that, saying the curriculum will have a ‘Christian foundation.’ The Freedom From Religion Foundation has now sent its own letter to School District D49, demanding that the district ‘immediately cease funding Riverstone Academy in order to comply with the First Amendment.’”

Our columns offer a range of perspectives

We have lots to say about current happenings — as evidenced by the number of blogs we have posted recently. FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence focused on a particularly intriguing case that is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. She writes that even though it is unclear how the court will rule, “what’s certain is that white Christian nationalism is a threat to every aspect of society — from prisons to the military and beyond — and that anyone who does not conform to the ideology’s rigid, racist ideals is a target.”

FFRF contributing writer Kat Grant addresses a profound question: “One of the weird things I frequently get asked when people find out I’m a constitutional attorney is: ‘What is your favorite amendment?’” In answering that query, Kat gets at something very important: “LGBTQIA+ rights might be the first theocratic domino, but we certainly won’t be the last.”

FFRF Action President Annie Laurie Gaylor spotlighted in a recent column the religious dimension of the Trump phenomenon. She begins, “After 7 million Americans gloriously marched in 2,500 communities recently to declare we’ll have ‘No Kings’ in the United States, the insistence by President Trump and his supporters that he has been divinely appointed leads me to make a suggestion: Maybe we’d better march next time for ‘No Messiahs.’” And she concludes, “Trump and his supporters, such as Bannon, are cynically playing the messiah card to help their ruthless quest to overturn the Constitution and democracy.”

A food emergency

Speaking of “No Kings,” as co-sponsors of these rallies, we are passing along an urgent call for a “No Kings Alliance National Days of Action” in response to the looming crisis of 42 million working families set to lose food assistance tomorrow via SNAP. The No Kings Alliance suggests several ways to support your community. Take a look.

Our religious home county supervisor

We denounced a supervisor in our home county for his attempt to impose his personal religious beliefs on county policy.

“Supervisor Jeff Weigand continues to demonstrate his erroneous belief that Dane County is a theocracy where public officials are empowered to enforce a fundamentalist biblical viewpoint,” our letter concluded. “The bible may guide his private life, but it has no place in secular governance. Dane County residents deserve leaders who base public health policy on science and compassion — not sectarian dogma.”

We’ve awarded $16,250 in essay prize money

We proudly announced the awarding of $16,250 to the nine top winners and four honorable mentions in the 2025 Cornelius Vander Broek Graduate/Older Student Essay Competition. Students were asked to write on the topic: “State/church issues endangered by the Trump administration’s capitulation to Christian nationalism.” “FFRF is happy to see another generation of freethinkers raising their voices in protest against the continuing threat of Christian nationalism,” said Annie Laurie. With this announcement, FFRF’s five annual essay competitions for various ranking classes of students are now concluded. FFRF will publish topics and prompts for the 2026 contests by next March.

A ‘Theocrat’ member of Congress

The “Theocrat of the Week” that our legislative arm, the FFRF Action Fund, has chosen this time around is U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, for his recent remarks deriding the recent No Kings protests and professing that Jesus is King of the United States. The FFRF Action Fund emphatically disagrees with Roy’s theological remarks.

A Lone Star ‘Secularist’

The Action Fund is bestowing its “Secularist of the Week” award this time around to a trustee of the Galveston Independent School District, Elizabeth Beeton, who has led the effort to delay the required display of Ten Commandments posters in Texas public schools under the law FFRF is contesting. The Action Fund thanks Beeton for her dedication to the Constitution and to her oath as a school board trustee.

Our amazing convention speeches and gallery of convention photos

The Freethought Radio episode this week had as its central segment Harvard Professor Steven Levitsky, author of “How Democracies Die,” speaking at the recent FFRF convention about “The Great Abdication: America’s Descent into Authoritarianism.” The speeches from the convention are already up and available. Just click here to be regaled. And enjoy the gallery of convention photos taken by FFRF Rapid Response Counsel Chris Line.

The state of our world

I’ve had a couple of guests on my global affairs community radio show recently who have provided a compelling perspective on the state of our world. University of Wisconsin Ph.D. student and journalist extraordinaire Carlos Davalos offered an assessment of Claudia Sheinbaum, the first-ever woman leader in North American history, including how her secular progressive populism offers an antidote to the religious right-wing populism blighting our planet. And Myanmarese dissident Maung Zarni dissected the human-rights violations of his home country’s ruling junta, often driven by the Buddhist variant of religious nationalism.

International Secular Day of the Dead virtual event tomorrow afternoon

We have a fun event coming up for you tomorrow afternoon. We are co-sponsoring the International Secular Day of the Dead. FFRF Co-President Dan Barker is paying poignant homage to cartoonist Steve Benson in a remembrance that will include a lot of Steve’s irreverent cartoons. And Annie Laurie is doing a remembrance of longtime member Dick Hewetson, a former Episcopalian priest-turned-atheist who was a part of FFRF almost since its founding. For more details, click here. You can register for the event at this link.

What we are about

We have run an ad in our hometown paper that gets to the heart of what we are about.

“In a Madison office building, a dedicated team works daily to protect one of America’s most fundamental principles: the separation of church and state,” the ad reads. “The Freedom From Religion Foundation has grown from a small advocacy group into the nation’s largest association of freethinkers, atheists and agnostics, now representing over 42,000 members across the country.”

It is because of you and our other dedicated members that we aren’t frightened to make our voice heard — on Halloween and every other day.

Happy trick-or-treating!